butter shelf

Well, fancy that! I learnt today about ‘alternative facts’. These are things that are found all the time in a thing called ‘fake news’. I’d have thought this expression was a bit of an oxy… erm… you know, like Mr Trump. Anyway, I hope they don’t become too popular as they threaten the Mail, the Sun and the Express, who actually charge money for something very similar, and earn me a nice income.

Mr Campbell, who used to write the voices in Mr Blair’s head, dropped by for his Tatler (£9) and was good enough to explain why making lies the truth can be a good thing. Now I understand Tinternet a bit better I also gained an insight into Mr Lewis’ creative new pricing policy.

You get one price written on the shelf labels. That’s an alternative fact, like UKIP’s Mr Nuttall claiming he had close friends who died at Hillsborough. Then you get a different price when you come to pay. That’s the truth.

I do sympathise with all those poor Tesco managers who, quite independently of each other, made identical mistakes across the entire estate. I mean, I’ve only got 1,000 SKUs and pretty much none of my shelf barkers bear the slightest relation to what I charge. So if Tesco is only overcharging one in 20 shoppers that’s really quite good, isn’t it? Like Mr Campbell said.

It’s a bit like the inflation figures that came out this week. Some say it’s all scaremongering and I confess I’m no longer absolutely sure what’s true and what’s ‘alternative’. On the one hand you have ‘experts’ at the ONS carefully compiling data suggesting prices have gone up because the pound is much smaller. On the other hand Mr Rees-Mogg, who doesn’t believe in inflation. Well, he can afford not to, can’t he?